Our Women on the Ground

Finished September 8

Our Women on the Ground: Essays by Arab Women Reporting from the Arab World edited by Zahra Hankir, foreword by Christine Amanpour

This collection of essays covers experiences in a number of countries over many years. The essays are grouped into five categories by type: Remembrances, Crossfire, Resilience, Exile, Transition. The journalists telling their experiences here range from single women to married mothers, and their educational backgrounds vary as well, with some with journalism degrees and others who fell into the field through opportunity. 

All of the women here care deeply about their home country and the country they reported on, often with the two overlapping. These are women who understand the culture and the people, who learned how to deal with the bureaucracy and the gender limitations, and who persevered in telling the stories that they could tell, trying always to push harder to tell the stories that others didn't want told. 

This is an inspiring collection, one that had me stopping and reflecting on each experience. For me, this was an eye into another culture that helped me understand the world better. 

Bagdad Without a Map

Finished June 6
Baghdad Without a Map and Other Misadventures in Arabia by Tony Horwitz

This memoir covers a his adventures in the late '80s in which Tony and his wife, writer and journalist Geraldine Brooks, were based in Egypt. She had just been offered the Middle East posting by her newspaper, the Wall Street Journal, and he decided that working freelance from Cairo was the best opportunity at that time. As he follows stories to a number of countries in the Arab world, he shows us the culture, the bureaucracy, the economic conditions of these countries. The people are both yearning for a different life idolizing western civilization, and dismissive of it. Getting things done takes time, money and endless patience. There are rule followers and rule ignorers, and he finds his way to get where he needs to go, see what and who he needs to see, and report on it. The writing is open and honest, showing disbelief and humour at the situations in which he finds himself. Several years ago, I read Geraldine's memoir, Nine Parts of Desire, covering the same time period, a book that developed from her gender as a woman, being able to access a world that male journalists couldn't get at, Tony's experience is that of a man, going to war zones, drinking late at night in dingy places, taking cabs alone to places he isn't sure of. What the two books have in common, besides good writing, is the connection to people. Where he goes, Tony connects with people, often the locals, but not always. He looks for background, for what normal life looks like for these people. From Libya to Yemen to Iran and many places in between he finds people and talks with them, and tells us about it. A great read.

Weapons of Mass Diplomacy

Finished April 1
Weapons of Mass Diplomacy written by Abel Lanzac, illustrated by Christophe Blain, translated by Edward Gauvin

This graphic novel follows a man who works for the French Foreign Ministry. as the speechwriter for the minister. The time is 2002 and Arthur Vlaminck is at first awed by the Minister, Alexandre Taillard de Vorms. Vorms quotes classical writers and poets, but Vlaminck soon discovers that Vorms is a combination of energy, ego, intuition, and rhetoric. The hours are long, the stress is high, and Vlaminck grows more and more distant from his fiance as he has less time for a personal life. The clash between the French and the Americans is a big part of this story.
This is a satire, with elements of political bluster, ancient Greek philosophy, and Middle East unrest.
As a backroom glimpse to the world of international politics, this is a well-written insightful novel. The drawing is well-done, feeding the action of the novel in the way it depicts the action and using elements of physicality to emphasize the nationality of the characters.
Enjoyable, if not my usual choice of subject matter.

Sitt Marie Rose

Finished February 1
Sitt Marie Rose by Etel Adnan, translated from the French by Georgina Kleege

This novel was first published in 1978, and received the France-Pays Arabes Award. The book is split into three parts. All take place in Beirut.
The first part is told from the point of view of an unnamed female writer who has been asked by a film-maker Mounir to write the script for a film he envisions about Syrian workers in Lebanon. His view of what the film should be and her investigations into Syrian workers don't fit together well, and shortly after their discussions the civil war in Lebanon breaks out. Mounir's friends Tony and Fouad and Pierre have often gone hunting in Syria and think of themselves in a certain way as being superior to the Syrians. As the fighting escalates, Mounir and his friends support the Phalangists, the Lebanese right. The war influences the writer's views further and she finds herself unable to work with Mounir.
The second part introduces us to Sitt Marie Rose. She is a Christian Lebanese middle-class woman, who, following a divorce, finds herself drawn to helping the Palestinians. She works for a social service agency giving the refugees assistance. She also runs a school in the Christian district for deaf mute children. When, during a truce, she makes the trek from her home in the Muslim part of the city to the school, she is captured by the Phalangists, and threatened with death. We see her views as well as the thoughts of the men who have captured her, and the children of the school who watch her interrogation by the men.
The third part is the end to Sitt Marie Rose's kidnapping at the hands of men who refer to themselves as the Chabab.
This is a book that examines the interactions, the fear and distrust between the different groups of Arabs here. It brings a wider look to the situation in the Middle East, and sadly, nothing has improved since this book was written, nearly forty years ago. She also brings the role of women into the story, looking at how women view themselves and how men view them. Sadly, this has not improved either in the Middle East. This story reads as prescient now.

The Patience Stone

Finished November 24
The Patience Stone by Atiq Rahimi, translated by Polly McLean

This short novel is set in a single room, in a war zone, perhaps in Afghanistan. In the room, a man lies comatose, unmoving, being tended to my a woman. As we discover this woman is his wife, and he has been injured as a result of a fight. The woman's relatives, including her husband's family have abandoned her and her children, and she struggles to look after the children and her husband.
She talks to him, and begins to be more and open, expressing her feelings, her secrets, her innermost thoughts. He is for her the patience stone, the stone that absorbs all secrets until it finally explodes, the stone of a fable that she has been told.
Despite the fact that the reader only sees what happens within the room, the world outside intrudes. The war, the destruction, the uncertainty all show themselves. This is a story that reveals the life of a woman in a very restrictive society, the struggles and the actions women must take to keep going.

Nine Parts of Desire

Finished June 21
Nine Parts of Desire: The Hidden World of Islamic Women by Geraldine Brooks
This has been my "purse book" for the last few weeks, one I read waiting in line, waiting for appointments, and when eating lunch out alone. I think reading it slowly like I did gave me time to absorb and ponder the book. 
Brooks was a prize-winning foreign correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, who spent six years covering the Middle East. Her gender allowed her access to people and situations that male journalists could not, and inspired this book. She tells of experiences in many Islamic countries and made connections with women in these different communities. She tells of prejudices, opportunities, and contradictions.
An eye-opening book on a world that is complex and important to the world today. Brooks went in with a respectful attitude and a willingness to listen and try to understand the realities of these women's lives. She probed for their reasons for the choices they made, the societal pressures they experienced, and observed how men and women interacted in these societies.
A great read.

Catching Up

I was on vacation last week and didn't blog about the reads I did, so I am catching up today. Didn't read all that much as I was too busy visiting etc.

Finished October 1
Rules of Betrayal by Christopher Reich, read by Paul Michael
This is the third book in the series featuring Dr. Jonathan Ranson and his wife Emma. In this one Jonathan is no longer with Doctors without Borders, but is on his own in Afghanistan, working as a freelance travelling doctor with an Afghani assistant. He hasn't seen Emma since their adventures in London months before.
After Jonathan barely survives an encounter with an Afghan warlord, and Emma is betrayed and tortured, Jonathan is contacted by Emma's superior, Frank Conner, head of Division. He is asked to undertake a mission into the heart of operations of a Middle East arms dealer that Emma was working with.
Lots of fast action and suspense that will keep you on the edge of your seat, which is what I expect from this series.

Finished October 3
Cleo: the cat who mended a family by Helen Brown
Written by New Zealand journalist Helen Brown, this personal memoir talks about how Cleo the cat helped her and her children, particularly her son, adjust to tragedy and change. Helen and her family already had a dog and she wasn't interested in adding a cat to the household, but her oldest son Sam was intent on wanting the cat, and willing to give up birthday gifts in exchange. Helen agreed to adopt the cat as soon as it was ready to leave its mother and Sam picked a name for the kitten. When the family was hit by sudden tragedy, the cat was forgotten until it appeared on their doorstep. Helen was again reluctant, until she saw the smile on her son's Rob's face, which hadn't been their since their loss, and she gave in.
As the family adjusted to the cat, and vice versa, the cat distracted them from their sadness and helped them to move on to a new way of living. Through its long life, Cleo again and again helped guide them, cheer them up and keep them positive.
Wonderfully written even through the heartbreak, this book illustrates the power of pets in our lives and how important they can be for such small creatures.

Finished October 9
The Fraser by Bruce Hutchison
Having travelled to B.C. on my vacation, I figured this would be a good choice for vacation reading. Originally written in 1950, this new edition is a facsimile, faithfully reproducing the original text. Well-researched and engagingly written, this history covers the settlement of B.C. which is tightly tied to the history of the Fraser river. Hutchison was a journalist who spent most of his life from childhood in B.C. and spoke firsthand to some of its early settlers.
I learned so much that I hadn't know about the history of this part of Canada that I was very glad I read the book. The last chapter contains musings about the future of the river, and it would have been nice to see an addendum that looked at what had really happened to the river in the last 60 years and how those changes affected the province.
A great read that includes both the big view and the personal stories, this book should be a must read for students of Canadian history. Others will also like the engaging writing and fascinating stories.

Thriller

Finished October 31
Rules of Deception by Christopher Reich, read by Paul Michael
This thriller, set in Switzerland, brings in some interesting themes. We have a main character Jonathan Ransom, who is a doctor working with Doctors without Borders. As he climbs in the Alps with his wife, who also works for the organization, she is hurt and later found dead in a crevasse.
The following day, Ransom receives an envelope addressed to his wife with baggage claim tickets inside. When he goes to claim the bags to satisfy his curiosity, he becomes intimately involved in a high-stakes intrigue involving murder.
As he struggles to keep a step ahead of the police who are now looking for him, he follows the clues in his wife's possessions to try to find out just what his wife was involved in, and to clear himself of any crimes.
We have involvement not only from the Swiss police, but also from U.S. intelligence agents, including conspiracies against conspiracies. The outcome of the events could mean a new large-scale war.
The action is fast, and Jonathan is a sympathetic character. This book will keep you engaged and wanting to find where the action is taking you.